GREELEY, Colo. (Sept. 19, 2022) – A new women’s health expert joined Banner Health Clinic brining midwifery services to the clinic.
Kathryn Smith is a certified nurse-midwife and brings a different approach to women’s health care.
As a certified nurse-midwife, Smith provides low-risk labor and delivery care at North Colorado Medical Center and sees patients in the health clinic for prenatal, post-partum and other primary women’s health care.
“Midwives provide low-intervention, high-touch care for patients who are at low risk of complications, and we believe there are a number of women in the Greeley community who want that,” said Jim Summers, DO, the Medical Director of Women’s Services at NCMC and for Banner Medical Group in northern Colorado.
Smith has nine years of medical-surgical nursing experience through roles in direct patient care, leadership and education. She earned her master’s degree in nurse-midwifery at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Smith has been a Nightingale Nominee for nursing and a Magnet Nurse of the Year award winner.
Certified nurse-midwives are advanced practice registered nurses with a master’s degree in midwifery who specialize in reproductive health and childbirth. They have completed four years of education earning their bachelor’s degree with two additional years of education in primary women’s health, prenatal care, labor and delivery, and post-partum care.
In Colorado, midwives are licensed and credentialed to see their own patients without direct physician supervision. At NCMC, the midwives will work with the OB-GYN physicians and be able to seamlessly transition patients who might have higher-risk needs.
Dr. Summers said the addition of midwifery services complements NCMC’s comprehensive maternity services which also include a Level 3 neonatal intensive care unit and obstetric hospitalists. Started in 2021, the OB hospitalist program provides an OB-GYN who specializes in caring for hospitalized patients with obstetric or gynecologic needs including those who are at high risk. Because hospitalists are present 24/7, they are available to respond to emergencies and to support women in labor who do not have a physician or whose physician is not available.
Banner Health Clinic specializing in OB-GYN care is located at 2001 70th Ave. Suite 300, Greeley; phone 970-810-6353.
Banner Medical Group, Banner Health's employed provider group, is a team of more than 1,300 physicians and advanced practitioners across 65 specialties and more than 3,500 total employees located in Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada and Wyoming. Banner Medical Group primary care providers include pediatricians, internists, family medicine physicians and obstetricians/gynecologists. Our specialists care for patients in both clinic and hospital settings. For more information, visit bannerhealth.com/doctors.
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